Guess the age

My special hubby is celebrating a Significant birthday today, and I'd known for months the 'card' I wanted to make him.

With good timing, after 5 months of searching, I spotted these cardboard shapes about a month ago, and also picked up the perfect Decopatch paper.

I covered the first number in the paper, taking the "pattern" straight along the sides.

However I felt that the underlying brown shone through a little, so I tried adding a layer of tissue paper

 before I covered the number 4. I also changed the angle of the pattern. Given the shape of the number I covered a scrap of card in the decopatch paper and glued the number on, so that it doesn't fall over.

There was lots of cleaning to do this week for the celebrations, plus a homemade banner, so with no time to fiddle, the "cards" stayed simple.

I think hubby liked it, though much of crafting passes him by!

Card magic

The next few weeks get really busy with birthdays, so if all goes well, they'll be lots of posts as I make the cards! I've also tried out scheduling a post for the first time. If all goes well for a second time, it's Monday evening when you see this for the first time!

This card is for a man, and we all know that they can be harder to design for. Luckily I know this friend as a great blackjack dealer at charity casino nights, so I took out my playing card die cuts and made up 4 cards to show his age and his birthday. He'll know which card represents what, but as he's my age, I'll leave a little mystery here!

I embossed a Queen of Hearts onto a card blank, rubbed blue chalk over the embossing itself and then popped the "cards" on the top. To finish off I used my stamp markers inside with a simple Happy Birthday.

Grr, I can't turn it round! Please turn your head / computer for the full effect :-)

I'm entering this in the Delicious Doodles Challenge, as I used 1 embossing [folder], 2 clubs and 3 diamonds.

Confession time

I'm a little late with the post, but at least the card was on time!

I decided to use tags to make a Garden Fan for Dad for Father's Day, so I started by cutting 3 tags from previously used card (I have a big stack of old cereal boxes etc, my Blue Peter watching habits die hard). I cut three, but took the photo part way through this process.

Then I randomly chose pages from my dictionary and cut tags from those too. These were stuck to the back (ie the picture) side of the cardboard tags.

Next I used Distress stain and children's paint pen to colour the tags green (Dad's favourite colour).  A quick spritz to blend some of the lines, and then being impatient my trusty heat gun was used to dry off the tags.

Smaller tags seemed a good idea, so I used my Sizzix Bigz tag to cut two from green card. Then I stamped watering cans on each one.

Finally I glued the big tags together in a sort of fan shape and then used brads to attach the smaller tags horizontally. But you'll have to imagine this, 'cos I forgot to take a photo, which is Confession Time. Oops.

This week's craft project has involved no paper (well, only a little bit, but I'll tell you about that later).

Saturday's Rotary President's Night had a Titanic theme for dress, so I set about "tarting up" an evening dress that I'd collected from Freecycle.

I was a little worried it might be warm to wear, as it's a lovely chocolate brown velvet, but the weather was on my side this June :-(.

Step one was a trip to my local fabric shop, and I returned with a brown ribbon (I didn't use this in the end, so it's been added to my lovely ribbon box), and two widths of a decorated ribbon, plus some voile.

A rummage in my ribbon box revealed a nice trim in a perfect colour, which I stitched down the skirt to add some interest.

The neckline is designed to wear off the shoulder, so I started by pleating it into a more 1910's neckline.

The next step was to sew the narrower patterned ribbon to the voile. This took some time as it needed good light, and I watched most of the Jubilee flotilla while I did this!

Next I added a length of the wider ribbon to define the waist. Here I discovered sewing on a dressmakers dummy can lead to sewing the dress to the dummy, and related unpicking and the-job-taking-twice-as-long-as-it-should. Much later I realised the thing to do was drop a sheet of paper between the dress and the dummy, which solved this problem.

The voile was then pinned and pleated around the neckline, which I then stitched in a couple of places to make sure it didn't "unroll" and show the undersides.

I added a strip of the widest ribbon to the bottom of the drape (added as a train effect), to define and also give a little weight.

Finally the drape/train was clipped together with a pearl fixing to help it to hang in the correct place. This was chosen since I wore my wedding present pearls and my pearl wedding tiara to top off the outfit, plus some white gloves with a nice sheen.

Wonderful Godchildren, again!

I really do have a special bunch of Godchildren!
Littlest Goddaughter has blossomed in school and begun to display musical talent, and this blog is about a celebration card I've made for her.

But before I start I need to boast that my pseudo Godson was spotted on TV again this week!

I started the card with a chipboard blank and inked in Distress Ink. But it didn't show. So then I inked directly from a Hobbycraft ink, but that was a bit stark, so I spritzed a little water on and dabbed with some paper to mottle it. Though it didn't work :-(

Then I stamped some background flowers on. Using my Hobbycraft inks again I inked two chipboard letters from my stash. While one was wet I sprinkled clear embossing powder and heated it. Then I rubbed in some ink, but this took longer to set than I thought, so I ended up with messy fingers and had to ink it again. The third letter came from a sticky set, but I mounted all three with pads to give some dimension.

I had a lion picture left from some other cards, and this was perfect as she gave a brilliant Lion performance at school, so I covered it with clear embossing ink and powder and stuck that on. Then I added the treble clef and note die cuts I bought a while ago, wrote on a Sizzix tag and tied it on with some lovely glossy, dotty ribbon.

Finally, since the little lady in question is such a star I added lots of stars. Some random and others in the middle of the flowers.

As predicted recently by a friend, if I can work out how, I'm entering this into a challenge, at Crafty Boots Crafty Boots Bowtastic, well, since I'd popped on a bow, how could I not!

Some early Red, White and Blue

This was a busy card month, with many other busy things too, so I've got lots of blogs catch up with too.

Mum's birthday was in May, and as her Mothering Sunday card was quite grungy, I decided on a more traditional birthday card.

I started off with a plain white card and decided on a red and blue colourway (along with the white, seems very of the moment now, but it was less so then).

I used some craft pads to give dimension to the dress (bought a while back in a sale), stamped Happy Birthday from a Papercraft set and then added a couple of fabric flowers, using my CropADile to fix the grommets (is that the right word) in place.

Mum liked the card, so I was pleased too.

Much as I love my CropADile, it does have a limited reach, so I'll have to come up with another way of making holes and fixing a bit further in (I wanted 3 flowers in a crescent, but couldn't achieve that).

I also sat in the wrong place to take the photo, so please ignore the shadow, oops!

My special Goddaughter passed her driving test, so it was time to make a card to celebrate.
But even after putting it into the envelope I knew I wasn't happy, so I started again.

I started off by cutting out a tag. I used a second hand box, which has a slight pattern on the back. I then used Weathered Wood Distress Stain, but it was too pale and not blue enough, so I sprayed the card and stained again while it was wet. It still lacked something, so I moved on to Stormy Sky, once again putting it on damp card. I dried it out with my heat gun.

Using Stormy Sky distress stain I stamped some stars (as she is one!), using an Anita's stamp, and, though I say so myself, I was impressed with the effect of stamping the same colour onto the background.

I cut out the frame from the same card, painted it with a Crayola kids paint, and then clear embossed it. Having glued on the frame I used a Hampton Art alphabet set (I was lucky C and M are missing, but I didn't need them) I stamped "Drive" in my Hobbycraft ink and clear embossed it.

I used some of the card that I cut the tag from to stamp Celebrate (from a Fiskars set) on, but as the card was very shiny I sandpapered it first to help the ink to bond. This meant that there are some scratches on it, but it works fine with the distressing.

To finish off I used another Fiskars stamp to add "Success" before tying on some ribbon, which was too "new" so I used my Stamping Up perforating tool to fray it a little.

A long description, I hope you enjoyed it.

Hope H likes her card too.